Teachers:
– Mrs Ward – Monday Tuesday Wednesday (Beginning of the Week)
Email: Nbeginning@parkspringprimary.co.uk
– Mrs Martin – Wednesday Thursday Friday (End of the Week)
Email: Nend@parkspringprimary.co.uk
Nursery Officer:
Mrs Jones
Teaching Assistants:
Miss Smith
Mrs Lawton
Good choices
We reward good choices in Nursery by collecting Dojo points. Every time we collect 25 Dojo points we get a certificate and a prize! We also highlight positives in class by ringing the Good News bell to share children’s good choices with the class.
‘Borrow a Bedtime Book’:
We love reading stories in Nursery! We would love you to borrow some of our Library Books to take home and share at bed time as a family.
Our Library day is now on a Wednesday for both beginning and end of the week. Children get 2 Dojo points in their reading diary for bringing their library books back and getting them changed. Please comment in the reading diary to show that you have shared the book.
Please pass your child’s library book bag to a member of Nursery staff when you arrive at school, thank you.
Tapestry:
We share observations of your children with you via the Tapestry App. We ask that you also share photo’s with us – the children love it when they see themselves on the screen when we share the pictures from home in class!
Come and join us!
We welcome family members to join us for:
Rhythm and Rhyme Time with Mrs Ward – Wednesday morning (8.50 -9.20am)
and
Rhythm and Rhyme Time / Roll up and Read on alternate weeks with Mrs Martin – Thursday morning (8.50 -9.30am)
https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbeebies/shows/numberblocks
2024-2025
Week 4
Hello lovely families! It’s been another fun week in Nursery for us all. We have been dancing and singing as usual and embracing the outdoors again…
… In the Imagination Station, an amazing hedgehog was created using a box that used to have paper in.
… Whilst climbing trees and ‘falling into the river’ the children met a grumpy fish who they brought around by feeding it leaves an flowers
… Lots of children have done an amazing job with SHARING the swings – what kind ones you are
… Some amazing (and massive) chalk spiders appeared near the slide
… Lily has been busy doing lots of writing using the books that she found outside
Thank you to all of you for being such superstars, you bring fun to every day in Nursery.
Week 3
Some of our families shared some lovely Tapestry photos this week, the children really enjoyed talking about their own photos, looking at the other children’s photos and discussing their favourite flavours of ice creams after being inspired by Belle’s yummy looking Marshmallow ice cream!
We have talked about the importance of looking after our outdoor space, especially with putting things away. Mrs Ward modelled how we put all of the things away in an area before we walk away and we had a good think about making sure this happens after we have played.
We have really enjoyed our Nursery Rhyme singing again this week. It was lovely to have family members join us for Rhyme Time on Wednesday morning. It would be lovely to have more people sharing the fun with us so please try and make it if you can (Wednesday mornings 8.50 – 9.15), thank you.
Week 2
The weather this week has made us all smile and the sunflowers that were planted last week are starting to grow!
We have continued to enjoy our syllable games in phonics, using animals to help us out – we have been clapping, patting and using our fingers to show how many syllables we are saying (e.g. ZEB(clap)RA(clap)).
Because some of the children have enjoyed climbing our apple trees, we went into the woods for a little bit to see which other trees we could find. We found a big woodlouse, played on the rope swing and spotted some beautiful bluebells. We learnt that we are not allowed to pick them (it is actually against the law).
Week 1
It is lovely to see you all back in Nursery – have you had a lovely Easter holiday? From what you have told us it sounds like the Easter Bunny was very busy!
This week we have been enjoying lots of time in our garden, watering the plants that are starting to grow and playing music in our arena. The birds have been very active and noisy too.
We have been practising using the language of position this week, saying whether things are on, in, under, going over or around etc. The children loved the game with the pig that we played to help us with this. We are starting to thing about counting 5 objects accurately now.
In phonics, after doing really well with counting the number of words in a sentence, we are now learning to say how many syllables there are in each word….phew! We are a busy lot!
Welcome to our new children, it is lovely to have you as part of our wonderful Nursery team.
SUMMER 1 INFO:
Summer 1 Author of the Half Term – Michael Rosen
Spring 2 Class Reader – Ladybird book of Favourite Nursery Rhymes
(We will expand our knowledge of Nursery Rhymes even further this half term – remember to come along to Rhythm and Rhyme time to share this fun!).
Week 5
The sun has been shining again this week and the birds have been singing, isn’t Spring such a lovely time?
We have enjoyed a lot of singing and dancing this week after following the children’s requests of popular songs. The children love bouncing around together with happy smiles on their faces and making up their own moves. We found another version of Oo ee oo ah ah and found a different routine that we can do.
We are really enjoying the ‘Large’ family stories by Jill Murphy and have been using the widget pictures to support us with our vocabulary as usual.
Again, board games and dominoes have been a real highlight for some children and we have also had some amazing constructions made with the wooden blocks (the ‘abandoned house’ comes to mind!).
Earlier in the week, some of the children enjoyed making perfume out of the flowers from our bushes in Nursery – we talked about it being ok for us to take a couple as there are lots on the bush and we have grown them in our own garden… but not to pick flowers when we are out and about.
Week 4
We have had so much fun outside this week, everyone has been wanting to explore with the weather being warmer.
You should see the Obstacle Course that some of us made! It was very challenging. We worked together, using each others’ ideas and tried our best to wait our turn. We had cones that we had to balance on (holding onto the tree) and a tiny tunnel that we made; we had to keep our bottoms down so that we didn’t knock the top off the tunnel!
During Big Write this week, we use our phonic skills to create our own words using the lines / marks that we have been practising. So if we wanted to write the sentence ‘It is sunny’, for example, we made sure that we made three marks for the three words…. – – – or +++ or |||. We did such a good job and this will really help us with our future writing skills.
We have been practising our careful counting of objects this week – we were only allowed to say the number when the object landed in the pot!
Thank you for another lovely week everyone, and, also, thank you to all the grown ups for supporting us by attending our family consultations.
Week 3
We have really enjoyed the story of Whatever Next! this week, particularly using the props to act it out. Here are the Widget pictures that we are using to support us with the language in the story:
The children have been wanting to play board games and families again a lot, particularly with with adult involvement!
In phonics, we have been breaking sentences down into their individual words – we have really enjoyed the games that have helped us with this. In maths, we have been thinking closely about patterns.
Week 2
Another lovely week for us in Nursery! We have helped to put up some beautiful insect houses (by screwing hooks into our pallets) that were donated by a company called Kilvingtons of Leeds LTD – they look great in our outdoor area.
On Monday, the Beginning of the Week children took part in our Book Cafe, enjoying juice, biscuits, and enjoying a story that they could take home. Thank you to all the families that supported us with this event:
Shrove Tuesday brought PANCAKES to Nursery! We enjoyed whisking the mixture and seeing our batter turn into delicious pancakes on the hot plate. We had to sample our cooking, of course and chose strawberry, chocolate or syrup toppings….yum!
We had a very special visitor on Wednesday, Thelma from The Guide Dogs charity and her lovely dog.
Week 1
We hope that you had a lovely half-term together, it’s great to be back with our friends, old and new.
Our phonics lessons have been really fun this week – we are becoming experts at telling the difference between singing voices and talking voices. We have followed the picture cards during songs and had to use either our talking voice or singing voice… this might be a fun game to play at home too? We also helped poor Miss Smith who had a headache. She was on the phone to Mrs Ward who kept bursting into song and this was not helping Miss Smith’s sore head! So we had to kindly remind Mrs Ward to stop when this happened.
Next Wednesday (5th March), linking to our Brown Bear, Brown Bear what can you see story, we will be having a visit from Thelma, the lovely lady from the Guide Dogs charity, and one of her special friends – can you guess who it might be? We will be finding out what it would be like if we struggled with our sight and how we can help people with struggle with their sight. Family members are welcome to come and join us at 10.30am or 1pm, depending on your session.
The children have been enjoying some ‘vets’ roleplay alongside our home corner this week – we have some very kind and caring children in our class; we have been showing team work by helping to carry the bagel trays too:
SPRING 2 INFO:
Spring 2 Author of the Half Term – Jill Murphy
Spring 2 Class Reader – Brown Bear, Brown Bear what do you See? by Bill Martin Jr / Eric Carle
(We will be thinking about the different things that we see around us).
You could play Eye Spy together…’I spy with my little eye, something that is red…’
Spring 2 Songs to Master –
Please enjoy these songs together at home:
Spring 1 2025
Week 6
We have really enjoyed sharing our Tapestry photos this week from Niamh and Isla – we saw Niamh flying around her kitchen as a unicorn and Isla shared photos of the beach, the woods and her dog! This really got the children talking.
We have been enjoying our Wake Up Shake Up dance with massive enthusiasm again and have found more music that we like to do our moves to too!
We have received some wonderful donations from a company called ‘Kilvingtons of Leeds LTD’ and this week we have worked together to follow the instructions to create a beautiful Hedgehog House. This tied in, luckily, with Hallie bringing ‘Spike the Hedgehog’ from her Dance Class to visit us! We numbered the parts and screwed them together in turn whilst Mrs Ward held them for us… what a great example of our super teamwork – well done.
We have been using our new ICT area in our role play. We have been using the donated phones and computers to enhance our ‘family’ play. If you happen to have any old technology that you would be able to donate, please have a chat with Mrs Jones – thank you.
Remember that next week is half term. We hope you have a lovely time together and would LOVE photos or videos being shared on Tapestry of anything that you have been up to at home. Thanks.
Week 5
This week, we have helped Mrs Jones to create our new ICT space which we have been really excited to explore. Some of our children have been practising their fine motor control by wrapping wool around screws and we have been using hoops outside to help with our counting.
We have enjoyed having the grown ups join us at our Rhyme time sessions, please do think about coming in and joining us for some fun together if you haven’t yet, you’ll definitely leave with a smile on your face!
We have been getting ready for Valentine’s day too…
We have continued to enjoy Jez Alborough’s stories – Where’s my Bear and This is the Bear and the Picnic Lunch. We have found them really funny! Do you like the Bear that we decorated together?
As always, we have had great fun in our outdoor area… apart from when some of the children turned into Zombies. We absolutely love our rope swings and there has been some beautiful music played in the arena too.
Week 4
We have really been enjoying creating trucks in the creative area this week using boxes, bottle tops, paint, and glue – they look amazing!
Thank you for sending library books back in. Remembering to bring these back is really good practise for when the children move further through school and have to remember their books then. We love awarding Dojo stickers so keep them coming!
Again, the children have been in full on role-play mode this week! They are loving having the adults involved and this week we had to include shops and angry babies in the game! As always, we have also enjoyed constructing and drawing…
Our regulation area is being used really successfully – we are very proud of the children for this. A big teddy has now taken up residence so anyone that needs a hug if they are in the blue zone can snuggle in easily (and of course the adults always make themselves available for hugs too!).
We have been having fun with the bubbles this week after singing ‘I had a little Turtle’…see if the children can sing it to you!
Spring 1 2025
Week 3
We have really been enjoying role playing families again this week, particularly when Mrs Ward was the baby!
Jez Alborough’s story ‘Duck in the Truck’ has been popular and we have been acting it out with the small world characters in out Tough Tray.
We have had to give out lots of Dojos for children really showing that they care about our classroom – they have been remembering to put their toys away when they have finished.
The Regulation Area (the safe space we can go do when we are not feeling in the green zone) has had more comfy cushions added and a little table so that we can draw how we are feeling if we are disregulated. The children are getting used to using this area if they are feeling sad or angry – we are very proud of how they are talking about their feelings and their confidence to do this, well done all. We can also use this area if we are feeling tired – see photo!
Week 2
Our super slippery playground meant lots of time indoors at the start of the week. We made sure that we did lots of activities to keep us active. You might want to ask you child to show you how to do our ‘Wake up, Shake up’ dance to ‘Oo ee oo ah ah’, it’s really fun. Jaylen added the ‘hula hoop’ and ‘spin around’ move for us all to do and Liwia is an expert at it!:Bing VideosWe also did some ‘Go Noodle’ exercises too – check out the website.
We have been enjoying Jez Alborough’s stories and have seen what he looks like on the internet. We have also continued enjoying ‘That’s not our Penguin’ as we have 10 copies in the book corner that we can all share together. We have also build farms and houses that are really big and complicated in the construction area. The children have loved playing families this week although the babies have been crying A LOT! Luckily, though, we have had competent dentists and doctors in class!
There has been some amazing team work skills happening this week and lots of dojos being handed out for children that are really trying their best with playing with friends – well done everyone… you are all amazing.
Week 1
A Happy New Year to all our families and welcome back to Nursery… how is it 2025 already!?
We have loved hearing about everybody’s Christmases and holidays and LOVED seeing the photos that the grown ups sent in for us to share on Tapestry – thank you so much…please keep them coming in as we aim to share photos each week.
It has been an amazingly snowy week for us. We went in the woods on Monday morning and played outside in the snow on Monday, building snow people, throwing snow balls and playing on the sledges (thank you to Jessica for kindly lending us her sledges too). Thank you for sending in hats, scarves, gloves, spare clothes and snowsuits – this has really helped us to be wrapped up really well outside so that we could have the maximum amount of fun!
Indoors this week, we have had snow in the water tray – we left it overnight and the snow had gone! There was only water in the tray… we realised that the snow had melted. We have painted actual snow too and also set up a snowy scene for Mrs Ward’s cute little penguins to play in.
We have remembered that Sue Hendra was our Author last half term and are looking forward to sharing stories from our author this half term, Jez Alborough and, also, our book of the half term, ‘That’s not my Penguin’.
SPRING 1 INFO:
Spring 1 Author of the Half Term – Jez Alborough
Spring 1 Class Reader – That’s not my Penguin by Fiona Watt
(We will be thinking about the different texture of things around us).
Can you find any shiny, soft or velvety things in your house?
Spring 1 Songs to Master – ‘Humpty Dumpty’ and ‘5 little Men’
Please enjoy these songs together at home:
Funky version of Humpty Dumpty:
Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall – BBC Teach
5 Little Men:
Autumn 2 2024
Week 7
What a lovely Christmassy week!
Our Parties have been amazing fun – dancing, games food and SANTA! Wow! We have really done an amazing job with our Christmas performances too. We truly are superstars!
Thank you so much to all the grown ups for supporting your children through their Nursery journey this term. We hope that you all have a wonderful holiday and we look forward to seeing you in the new year, 2025. Take care.
Week 6
It’s been another great week in Nursery. We have been really enjoying the story ‘Dear Zoo’ by Rod Campbell. We have been sharing the class set of books and we all pretty much know the words off by heart! We have all been taking so much care of the books making sure that we take care with the flaps.
Week 5
We have started practising the songs for our Christmas performance this week and the children have been putting in amazing effort with this.
We learnt about the special book for Christians, the Bible, and listened to the story of the first Christmas.
We have, as always, been enjoying the reading area in class…
We have enjoyed using the new rope swings and the addition of sand in the Mud Kitchen outside – Mrs Ward, Mrs Martin, Mrs Jones and Miss Brearey worked really hard in our garden on last week’s training day.
Week 4
What a lot of run we have had doing Nobot the Robot activities! We have painted our own Robots – the children chose to use the junk modelling boxes – and we have even created our own books, wow!
The painting of Robots led to some amazing colour mixing investigations…
We have also had fun learning about patterns over recent weeks. Are you wearing any patterns today?
Week 3
This week we have had SNOW!!! HOORAY! We had snow much fun playing outside together.
The children have also been keen to make more Barrys! They have really engaged with the Sue Hendra stories and have been wanting an adult to read them throughout the day.
We have been really looking after the creative area well, remembering to only use a little bit of paint and then get more if we need it. Such amazing independent and friendly playing, well done.
Hallie and Niamh have got their SECOND certificate for 25 Dojos! WOW! The rest of the children are not far off theirs either.
We really enjoyed sharing Jessica’s photos on Tapestry this week too and she was delighted to chat to us all – thank you! Please try and remember to send these in each week, thanks.
Week 2
It was Remembrance Day on Monday and we respectfully talked about the soldiers that have fought for us. We made our own poppy bracelets by carefully ripping red and black paper as a reminder of what the soldiers have done for us. We also watched the Poppies clip on Cbeebies as we held our 2 minute silence.
We have also been enjoying the Sue Hendra story, Barry the Fish with Fingers. Have a look at some of the amazing fish – with – fingers creations that we have made this week…
Week 1
It has been lovely to see the children back after the holidays and to hear all about the different things we did during our holidays! Henry, Liwia, Jaylen and Hallie enjoyed standing up in front of the class this week to share their holiday photos on Tapestry – thank you so much for sending them in for us to see.
We talked about Bonfire safety on Tuesday and enjoyed having our own Bonfire in the wild woodland. We learnt how to stay safe near the fire and enjoyed eating the popcorn that Mrs Ward and Mrs Jones made – it sounded like popping fireworks as it was cooking! We then made our own (safe) sparklers by pushing ‘firey’ coloured leaves onto the end of sticks that we collected. We also made firework explosions with the leaves. Mrs Jones and Miss Smith helped us to have a go with our very own sparklers later in the day. We learnt how to safely leave fires and sparklers when we have finished with them so that the don’t burn any one or relight and start another fire – can you remember what we have to do?
AUTUMN 2 INFO:
Autumn 2 Author of the Half Term – Sue Hendra
Autumn 2 Class Reader – Dear Santa (By Rod Campbell)
Autumn 2 Songs to Master – ‘Wind the Bobbin Up’ and ‘The Wheels on the Bus’
You could enjoy these songs together at home (we sing slightly different versions in class. We sing ‘all day long’ when singing The Wheels on the Bus and we sing ‘wind it back again’ after ‘wind the bobbin up’, rather than as a separate verse):
https://www.scottishbooktrust.com/songs-and-rhymes/wind-the-bobbin-up
Autumn 1 2024
Week 8
This week has been all about our Author of the Half-Term, JULIA DONALDSON.
We have particularly been enjoying the story of Room on the Broom…so much so that we decided to dress up as the characters from the story for the day! Nursery was full of witches, cats, dragons and even cat-spiders! We made our own stripy wands, just like the witches.
We also made a massive broomstick that catered for all our needs (it had a fridge and a toilet!).
The children really perfected their face painting skills on this day…..
The witch from Room on the Broom told us that her favourite animals are owls. She kindly invited us to meet her woodland owl friends at school and a lovely lady called Katie brought them to see us. We were so excited to meet them and many of the children were keen to ask questions. We all bravely went close to them too, some of us even held the owls with the special glove.
If you have enjoyed hearing stories by Julia Donaldson, then here are some more Julia Donaldson stories for you to enjoy at home:
Week 7
We have been loving the story ‘Come on Daisy’ for the past few weeks.
We have introduced widget cards to help support our understanding of new vocabulary and these have been really well used by the children.
We made our own dragonflies and ducks
Week 6
This week, in Phonics, we have been exploring the noises that we can make by patting objects with our hands and sticks! We went into the wild woods to explore the exciting noises we could make there…
Our Dojo monsters (who help us collect points when we make good choices) have finally hatched out of their eggs and because there have been so many positive choices happening in Nursery, lots of children have received their Dojo prizes for getting 25 Dojo points! Wow!! We have also had a treat ( going on the Adventure Playground) for working as a team to tidy up AND we have had lots of names on the recognition board for sitting on the carpet when asked. WELL DONE EVERYONE!
Weeks 4 and 5
Most children have started their exciting journey in Nursery now, so we have begun to settle into Nursery life……..
We have started our Dough Disco sessions and our White Rose Maths and yesterday we went on a Listening Walk around the school grounds. We heard birds, cars and even a helicopter. The children all had their ears switched on and could talk about their surroundings. Well done Nursery
Weeks 2 and 3
My, my what a hectic and exciting time in Nursery !!!!
We have had numerous new starters who have been exploring all of nursery, both inside and out and of course we had our very special celebration of 60 years of Park Spring !!
In maths we have been looking at fewer and more than, following the White Rose Maths scheme and our Class Reader has been ‘Come on, Daisy!’ by Jane Simmons. All children have made a very positive and happy to start to Nursery !
Week 1
Welcome back to Nursery !!!
We hope you had a lovely Summer and are looking forward to the new and exciting adventures that we are going to be having in Nursery.
We have home visits and new starters galore so the returning children have been great ambassadors and are steering the new children in the right direction.
We will keep you posted with all our exciting news and cant wait to see your happy smiling faces.
AUTUMN 1 INFO
Autumn 1 Author of the Half Term – Julia Donaldson
You could have a look at Julia Donaldson’s website:
Autumn 1 Class Reader – Come on Daisy! (By Jane Simmons)
Autumn 1 Songs to Master – ‘Twinkle Twinkle Little Star’
https://learnenglishkids.britishcouncil.org/listen-watch/songs/twinkle-twinkle-little-star
If your child has been offered a place in Reception for September 2023 from the admissions team at Leeds City Council, please email Mrs Houghton (EYFS Leader) at admissions@parkspringprimary.co.uk to accept or decline their place. Read more…
Do you have a child that is DUE to start RECEPTION in September 2023. If so please visit the ADMISSIONS page on the ‘Key Info’ tab as shown below on this WEBSITE. Any questions please Read more…
Egg-citing news! Our pet chickens arrived from the ‘Fresh Start for Hens’ charity last weekend. They have been rescued as they are 18 months old and the farm that they were laying eggs for has Read more…
Hello boys, girls and families. I hope that you had a lovely Easter break and are all ok at home. I have had lots more emails sent to me with photos of you keeping Read more…
Hello Nursery! I have really enjoyed filming videos for you over the past few weeks. Here are some quick links so that you can find them easily. Keep the requests coming in! ? Mrs Read more…
March 19, 2025
